Tag Archives: United Nations

Bloomberg News reports: President Donald Trump will assail China for the coronavirus pandemic in a speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly aimed squarely at U.S. voters, calling on the international body to punish Beijing. “In the earliest days of the virus, China locked down travel domestically while allowing flights to leave China and infect the world. The Chinese …

Politico reports: White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ended the “Will he? Won’t he?” intrigue surrounding President Donald Trump’s possible in-person appearance at the U.N., telling reporters aboard Air Force One Thursday night that the president will not go to New York next week to give his speech to the assembly. Diplomats are even more reticent than usual when …

Mother Jones reports: Two months after a controversial State Department commission elevated religious freedom at the expense of LGBTQ equality and reproductive rights, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is planning to promote its findings at the United Nations, Mother Jones has learned. During the UN General Assembly, which begins on September 15 in New York, Pompeo is expected to lead …

Politico reports: How financially sustainable is an industry if it is distorted by $5 trillion in annual subsidies? That’s the challenge laid out by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is taking direct aim at government subsidies for producers and consumers of fuels such as oil, gas and coal. “Fossil fuel subsidies must end, and polluters must start paying …

The Associated Press reports: Africa could see 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus this year even under the best-case scenario, according to a new report released Friday that cites modeling from Imperial College London. Under the worst-case scenario with no interventions against the virus, Africa could see 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections, the report by the U.N. Economic Commission …

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: “Now is a time for unity in the global battle to push the COVID-19 pandemic into reverse, not a time to cut the resources of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is spearheading and coordinating the global body’s efforts.” American Medical Association: “During the worst public health crisis in a century, halting funding to the World …

Axios reports: The novel coronavirus pandemic is the “greatest test” the world has faced together since the formation of the United Nations just after the Second World War ended in 1945, UN chief António Guterres said Tuesday. Guterres said at the launch of a UN report on the potential socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 that the pandemic could bring a global …

CNN reports: Almost a third of the Earth will need to be protected by 2030 and pollution cut by half to save our remaining wildlife, as we enter the planet’s sixth era of mass extinction, according to a United Nations agency. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity released a draft plan on Monday, which sets global goals to combat the …

The Associated Press reports: The past decade has seen a backlash against human rights on every front, especially the rights of women and the LGBT communities, according to a top U.N. human rights official. Andrew Gilmour, the outgoing assistant secretary-general for human rights, said the regression of the past 10 years hasn’t equaled the advances that began in the late …

Politico reports: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to assure nations at the U.N. conference in Madrid today that the U.S. would join its efforts to fight climate change despite President Donald Trump’s move to pull the U.S. out the Paris agreement. “By coming here we want to say to everyone, we’re still in,” Pelosi said at a press conference in …

USA Today reports: The world’s oceans and mountains are in peril, and so are we, according to a major new report from United Nations climate scientists released early Wednesday. The “Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere” offers a bleak picture. It warns that the world’s oceans have reached or are nearing critical tipping points: Oceans have gotten warmer, more …

The Associated Press reports: U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned global leaders Tuesday of the looming risk of the world splitting in two, with the United States and China creating rival internets, currency, trade, financial rules “and their own zero sum geopolitical and military strategies.” In his annual “state of the world address” to the General Assembly’s gathering of heads of …

CNN reports: He mocked their marble. They laughed in his face. The United Nations and President Donald Trump are not, by most measures, easy friends. Nevertheless, Trump traveled for the third time this week to the UN General Assembly more intent than ever on promoting his America First agenda in the place that appreciates it least. It’s one presidential tradition …

The Daily Beast reports: Greta Thunberg shocked the United Nations Climate Action Summit on Monday with an angry, accusatory tone and direct, frank talk. “This is all wrong,” said the 16-year-old climate activist from Sweden, fighting back tears. “I shouldn’t be up here – I should be in school, across the ocean.” Taking an angry tone, she continued, “You come …

McClatchy reports: The United Nations General Assembly opens next month with a major summit on climate change – but at least one head of state will be absent from the global stage. Three senior administration officials told McClatchy that President Donald Trump plans to skip the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23 hosted by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. Environmental …

Just in from the United Nations: “The World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights” estimates that the next 30 years will see the global population add an extra 2 billion people to today’s figure of 7.7 billion, and, by the end of the century, the planet will have to sustain around 11 billion. India is expected to show the highest population increase …

NBC News reports: Julian Assange has been left in a state of “extreme stress, chronic anxiety” and “constant panic” after spending seven years holed up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, a leading United Nations expert who visited the WikiLeaks co-founder in prison said Thursday. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, told NBC News he blames the United States, United …

The Associated Press reports: Almost every country in the world has agreed on a legally binding framework for reducing polluting plastic waste, with the United States a notable exception, United Nations environmental officials said Friday. An agreement on tracking thousands of types of plastic waste emerged at the end of a two-week meeting of U.N.-backed conventions on plastic waste and …

ABC News reports: President Trump speaking to the National Rifle Association, a group that made a multimillion investment in his campaign, declared his administration will not ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty – an Obama-era measure aimed at regulating the arms industry and that was intended to help keep such weapons away from human rights violators. The treaty was not …

Finland’s YLE reports: Finland has once again been ranked as the happiest country in the world. The Nordic nation received the accolade for the second year in succession in the annual survey of global happiness from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Finland beat out 155 other countries for the title in the 2019 report, released Wednesday. The report …